IN CONFIDENCE -CLIVE LLOYD CRICKET SUPER-STAR: .. If Anyone Has His Email Address, Kindly Forward This to Sir Clive From: Errol
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IN CONFIDENCE -CLIVE LLOYD CRICKET SUPER-STAR: .. If anyone has his email address, kindly forward this to Sir Clive From: Errol M Harry-.London- Date 16 March 2015 A Confidential letter to Sir Clive Lloyd with an Urgent Request: After the brutal assassination in Guyana last week of anti-ppp Regime Political Activist Courtney Crum-Ewing, you are respectfully requested to now make contact with the APNU-AFC Opposition Coalition to arrange a photo-opportunity appearance alongside Moses Nagamootoo(AFC) and David Granger(PNC) on their Election platform similar and equal to the one you afforded Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 Re-election Campaign at Wembley stadium... Dear Clive, Since you do not know me personally I do hope that my first-name familiarity is not considered an impertinence but I am sure that you appreciate that to all Guyanese at home or abroad you are still our very own Clive, our National hero ... I also appreciate that in the perilous times in which our country finds itself it might be considered ill-advised even risky to accede to the request above : to lend your considerable popular appeal and celebrity status to the pro-democratic pro-decency and anti-racism , Campaign for real change in our benighted country and for which Mr Crum-Ewing’s life was taken. This is him below Nevertheless the cash-strapped Guyanese Opposition Coalition desperately needs your contributions (and from many other celebrities) at this crucial time in our history. Clive these are days when even Guyanese Ambassadors abroad are keeping a very low profile. But as I hope you will any similar decision of yours to keep your own counsel and remain aloof will find yourself in very bad company indeed. BACKGROUND -POLITICS AND SPORT. I respectfully remind you of your contribution of a non-speaking photo-op at Wembley Rally for Margaret Thatcher in 1983.It was widely publicised on UK TV and in the press at the time. I have to say that many blacks and Asians here in Britain were quite surprised at your political intervention on her behalf because we knew Thatcher and heard her call Nelson Mandela a terrorist. We also remembered her statement appreciating (white) ‘peoples concerns about our culture being swamped’ (iv).This gave rise to the Police Stop and Search Operation against Black youths in Brixton called ‘Swamp 81’-which led directly to the 1981 Riots . Clive it bothered a lot of people that Margaret Thatcher’s refusal in 1981 to restrain husband Denis from making his views on the Youth uprising known: (send them back to ‘Bongo-Bongo land’), did not restrain you in 1983 from participation in her re-election Rally. A few of us also recall your refusal just two years before this while touring Britain with the West Indies Cricket Team rally in 1980 to wear a black arm-band on the pitch as a tribute to your friend and Guyanese anti-dictatorship activist Professor Walter Rodney assassinated just like Courtney Crum-Ewing, on 13 June 1980. Clive your contradictory stand for Thatcher ,this was your decision as a sportsman to do nothing political at a time when not only was Margaret Thatcher staunchly supporting the South African Apartheid regime but the campaign to ban South Africa from International cricket and sports in general was in full swing : The mantra at the time was ‘there can be No normal sport in an abnormal racist Country’ In considering my request you may also want to think about ex-Miss Guyana Beauty Queen Shakira Baskh ,Mrs Michael Caine’s political intervention on UK TV. She publicly spoke out against the Burnham Dictatorship on the Eamon Andrews show- going so far as - to compare the situation of Indians in Guyana as just like in South Africa. This was not only an exaggeration of the Guyana situation under Burnham bad as it was, but also revealed ignorance of the Apartheid system where it was illegal not to racially discriminate. The point here is that her beauty Queen status as ex-Miss Guyana did not hand-cuff her mouth nor her mind. She had the balls to speak out. It is also worth noting that since the democratic return of the ppp in 1992, and the gross excesses and avalanche of murders after 1999 we are still waiting in vain for a pip or squeak out of eminent Guyanese abroad like Tony B-liar’s very own Black Baroness (v) and current UN’s Refugee Chief Valerie Amos (see John Pilger’s You Tube documentary on her role in re-moving Black people from Diego Garcia or go to his web-site) or Trevor Philips the Head of UK Human Rights Commission. While ‘Val‘ is preoccupied with Syria, Trevor is rather busy as I write dealing with a monumental issue in the UK : ‘British Racists are now afraid to speak out and losing their Freedom of Speech-(see today’s Daily Mail headline ‘Daring to speak out - the explosive truth about Race in Britain) . Clive, clearly Trevor Philips has never heard about Guyanese Attorney General Anil Nandlall’s unique Dec 2014 interpretation of Freedom of Speech -murderously ‘Charlie Hebdo’esque and rampantly sexist-see transcript below.. Similarly our mutual friend Professor Colin Bobb-Semple also once claimed (to me )that he knew absolutely nothing about Mark Benschop‘s imprisonment without charge nor trial. They are both wilfully ignorant Clive, to these going’s on in the land of their Birth. You must recall some years ago under Jagdeo’s Presidency his Ministry of Sports memorably advertising the 20:20 Cricket Series and inviting fans to visit Guyana to experience the ‘unique East Indian Culture’ . A few Questions Clive: Does this ppp Ministry still engage you as its well-paid Cricket Consultant? Does your contract include Equal non- racist access to Sporting facilities in Guyana? or is it strictly bat and ball tunnel-vision cricketing? How can the cricket be ‘normal’ if Guyana is deformed, contorted and convulsed by institutionalised racism? Sir Clive PR-wise, you should never expose yourself to the faintest suggestion that such an illustrious son of the soil like yourself is just a hired nun to dress up the Guyanese whore-house. Or that your mouth will be silenced by the food you are putting in it-( Martin Carter). I feel compelled to point out that while you might be recruited and selectively integrated by the Guyanese East Indian power Structure the masses of Africans are still excluded economically our Culture marginalised if not denigrated. Clive this regime has even refused Africans in Guyana the right to choose the site of a Monument (the Parade Ground) to honour our Slave ancestors and the 1823 Uprising.. You will recall that, like Denis Thatcher, President Jagdeo himself did not restrain himself from announcing to the world via the Wall Street Journal that :‘ India is alive and well in Guyana’. Racism is also alive and killing in Guyana Clive. While this President of Guyana was excluding Black people in Guyana and his Sports Ministry was including you while denying our Culture, you must be very careful not to allow them to bamboozle you .Nor to tranquilise your conscience with US Dollars. There is a world of difference between genuine acceptance and cosmetic tolerance. Clive, when you were playing cricket for our country or Courtney Crum-Ewing was running for Guyana it is instructive to realise that to certain powerful elements in the country Guyana you guys were actually representing India. Little wonder that Indian and Pakistani cricket teams touring the Caribbean to play the West Indies play at home in Guyana When Courtney crossed another invisible finishing line and took a 85 day solo stand against Nandlall outside his Carmichael Street office and against the Regime which supports him to this day, it was appropriate in another weird historical sense that they shot him down while he was sprinting Clive. Not for India nor Guyana but to save his own life… Now All Guyanese without exception have a duty to honour this man. You too must honour him Clive by taking a stand against all the indecent things he died fighting against. A senior ppp Minister asked for an interview by a young female Journalist said to her ‘I can still get an erection’-read Freddie Kissoon’s Column in Kaieteur News. Your friend Wally (Rodney) was also an athlete. However, unlike Courtney who was trapped by a second car which blocked his exit at the dark end of the street that night in Diamond, Walter Rodney too once sprinted and escaped with his life. As Chavez said Por Ahora-For Now. Faced with Dictator Burnham’s Death Squads, House of Israel thugs, and his Police trying to arrest him at WPA Public meetings Wally sprinted away in Kitty just like Courtney. This was in 1979 the year before they actually blew him up . In February 1980, at Mashramanee the Guyanese Police band ‘memorialised ’ Wally’s athletic prowess with a tune probably named by the then Dictator. It was called ‘Run Rodney Run’ . Burnham promised to send Walter to the Olympics, but sent him to the cemetery instead on 13 June 1980.. Now 33 years later this current crop of infinitely more murderous ppp Dictators are brazenly trying to desecrate Walter Rodney’s non- racist class-based legacy by using his assassination and their Inquiry as cheap political propaganda to bash the opposition before this Election . They themselves are now prime suspects in the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing. This suspicion, only a suspicion mind you, is not an unreasonable one Clive .